


the precious ache

by isawet



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Slice of Life, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-29 06:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21405445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isawet/pseuds/isawet
Summary: Written for the prompt of Waverly going to Nicole after a fight with Champ, pre-relationship, and then Waverly going back to Nicole for comfort once they're together.
Relationships: Waverly Earp & Nicole Haught, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 67
Kudos: 312





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheGaySmurf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGaySmurf/gifts).

> just a little drabbley work to get myself back into the swing. the next thing I want to finish is the clexa smith au. 
> 
> Not beta-ed, so please excuse errors. Prompt by gaysmurf

Fights with Champ, like all else with him, are familiar and worn. It’d be comforting, maybe, if it didn’t make Waverly feel stuck, frozen in amber in Purgatory and playing out the same old story her parents did. He’s got no ambition, not beyond another first place belt buckle to hang on the wall, no GED, no resume to his name. Sometimes she feels like she never leaves Shorty’s, that Shorty’s--for all it is truly her home and her family--is the true Limbo in Purgatory. At least Daddy held down a job, even if he performed it from the bottom of the bottle.

Behind the library, there’s a hole cut into the chainlink. The high schoolers use the parking lot to smoke and drink and talk big dreams about leaving and never looking back. Waverly remembers that, sitting on the hood of a pick up truck, the fog rolling in lit up by the headlights and room temperature beer on her tongue.

It’s empty at present--three in the morning on a Tuesday is a stretch, even for the delinquents of Purgatory--and Waverly walks the edges of the lot, fuming at Champ’s latest stupidity and kicking at the smoked out cigarette butts littering the asphalt. 

Untold number of laps and thirty two minutes later, and she’s not feeling anymore ready to return to Chance’s apartment or her room at the Homestead. She could pick the lock on the library doors--it’s old, and she’d learned how to pick it when she was ten, the first--and only--time Gus and Curtis let Wynonna stay the weekend. They’d climbed out the window of Waverly’s room, bundled up and tip-toeing, and crawled down the tree, sneaking through the darkened streets like it meant something, like anyone would care to look for them except the McCready’s. 

Library’s quiet, Wynonna had told her. It’s an old building, concrete and insulated, and it holds enough heat from the day that it isn’t freezing as bad as a Purgatory winter night. Library’s quiet, Wynonna had told her, showing her how to jimmy the back door. Library’s a good safe place.

Waverly’s older now, old enough to look between the lines and realize what Wynonna had meant. Too little too late, she figures, and Wynonna’s back now anyway. 

She’s got Champ’s truck, and it smells like him, beer and old whiskey, loose hay in the footwell and his rodeo boots in the back. She taps her fingers on the wheel, her breath fogging out until she turns the engine over and cranks on the heat. Slowly, so slowly she can hear the tires crunch over the gravel and the forming frost, she pulls out of the lot onto the road. 

++

There’s a little neighborhood, on the edge of the city proper just before it starts to fade into the tiny suburbs on the edge of the forest, the distant salt flats just visible through the dip in the hills. The houses aren’t as nice as the ones high up, where the mayor and the councilmen and the judges live, but they’re not as shabby as the homestead: the paint fresher, the construction more modern. 

Nicole’s house is blue, with fading white trim. The porch creaks when she climbs the sagging steps, and she shifts her weight on the scratchy brown welcome mat, frowning at the doorbell. “This is stupid,” she mutters, and she means to turn around and just go home, drink herself to sleep just like everybody else who’s ever lived at the Earp Homestead, except just then the porch light comes on, and she can hear the deadbolt turn.

Nicole’s in sweats, one pocket hanging inside out, her hair gathered into a hasty ponytail with escaped wisps hanging against her neck. She squints, shivering at the night air on the bare skin of her arms, bared by her t-shirt, thin and worn, too faded to make out the logo. “Waverly?” she asks, and her voice is sleep-rough, lines and creases on her face from her pillow. “Is everything okay?”

“Uh,” Waverly says, suddenly mortified. “Yes?”

Nicole rubs at her eyes with the back of one hand, then blinks.

“I should--” Waverly starts, and Nicole speaks at the same time. 

“Come in.”

They pause, awkward, and Nicole looks at her, barefoot and mussed. Waverly realizes she’s never seen Nicole out of uniform before, and she can feel her cheeks pink. 

“Waverly,” Nicole says, head tilted and eyes shadowed by the dim porch light. The house, behind her, is dark and warm. “C’mon.”

“Okay,” Waverly says quietly, and follows her inside. 

Nicole shuts the door behind her, flicking on the entryway light, and they both wince at the brightness. “A drink?” Nicole offers.

“Yeah.”

Waverly follows, feeling awkward and overly dressed, Nicole barefoot in her pajamas and Waverly still in her work clothes, her bartending flats. 

“Something strong?” Nicole asks, leading her into the kitchen and flipping on the lights. “Or something warm?”

“Both, if you’re offering.” 

“Get the hot water going? It takes a second to warm up.”

“Okay.” Waverly goes to the sink, cranking the hot water to maximum. The pipes creak, and Waverly shifts on her feet, feeling awkward. She can hear Nicole moving around the kitchen, coming close enough their shoulders brush to reach up into the cabinet. “It’s late,” Waverly says quietly, still looking at the running water, the steam just starting to wisp up in delicate curls. “You didn’t have to let me in.”

“Pretty girl shows up on my porch, lookin’ rough the way you do?” Nicole smiles, tired but genuine. “You know how to fix this up?” She clunks a bottle of bourbon onto the counter, barely cracked open, and then two coffee mugs, with a more apologetic look. “No tumblers.”

“Don’t worry about it.” This is something Waverly could do in her sleep, mixing drinks. She’d even took a course on how to do the fancy ones, all online, but no one in Purgatory does much more than drink whatever’s on tap or shoot whiskey. Warm water, the bourbon, Nicole digs deep in her fridge and manages to find a packet of to-go honey from the diner downtown and half a lemon. “Cinnamon sticks?”

Nicole rubs at the back of her neck, looking sheepish. “Cooking’s not my forte.” 

“We’ll make do.” Nicole hands her a spoon and Waverly stirs, the metal clinking against the ceramic. “Do you want to know? Why I’m here, I mean?”

“Sure,” Nicole replies, easy as anything, “but either way, no complaints.”

Waverly pinks again, turning to the sink to hide it. “Champ was… “ she sighs. “Being himself, I guess.”

Nicole comes up to her, their hips bumping, and slides the mugs closer. “Hot toddy?”

“With a kick,” Waverly says, adding another slug of whiskey to each mug. “Cheers.”

“To complaining about men,” Nicole agrees, clinking her mug against Waverly’s. “I’ve got practice.”

Waverly smiles against the curve of the mug, then sips, feeling the warm burn of it down her throat and into her belly. 

Nicole pulls a slight face. “The Earp kick, huh?”

“We haven’t got much,” Waverly agrees, knocking back her entire mug with a few long practiced swallows, “but we can drink.”

Nicole is quiet, watching Waverly make herself another drink. “Seems like a sisterly thing, gossiping about boyfriends.”

Waverly frowns at the floor. “Wynonna doesn’t like Champ.”

Nicole snorts, then mutters something under her breath. When Waverly looks at her questioningly, she shrugs. “Besides you, I’m not sure who does like Champ.”

Waverly sets her mug down on the counter with a clink. “How did you know?”

“Oh, I can clock a dudebro from a hundred paces.”

Waverly turns, arms crossed over her chest. “No, not that. How did you know… about girls?”

Nicole blinks at her. Then she smiles, wan and a little tired. “C’mon. I’ll make up the couch for you.”

Waverly trails her, flicking the kitchen lights off as they go down the hall, pausing only to retrieve a few sheets from the closet. “You didn’t answer my question,” Waverly says quietly, when they’re back in the living room. It’s dark, lit only by the streetlamp outside and the moon, dimly glowing through the window. 

The sheet snaps when Nicole shakes it out, fluttering down onto the beat up cushions. When she smoothes it down her hand leaves imprints. The clock on the coffee table glows red--it’s almost four in the morning. “What do you want to hear?”

Waverly frowns. “The truth,” she says, remembering all the things she’s been told about the night Daddy died, remembering Wynonna on a mental health hold in the hospital and Willa’s lonely grave. “Always the truth.”

Nicole half-smiles at her, the other half lost in shadow. She pats the sofa, draped over with a sheet, a pillow at one end of the couch and a folded up blanket at the other. “Sit with me?” she asks, and when Waverly complies she sits cross-legged on the floor, her red hair almost glowing in the dim light. 

“I don’t know what you need,” she says, quiet and calm. “Because I always knew.”

Waverly leans back on the couch, frowning at the ceiling. “Always? You never…” she trails off. “I’m sorry, I think that’s offensive.”

Nicole is silent for a moment; Waverly watches the red numbers roll over to the next hour, now more early in the morning than late at night. “I always knew,” she says finally, resolutely. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t try to lie to myself.”

It’s there, on the tip of Waverly’s tongue, a truth she’s never told to anyone, not even herself. Her breath catches, her face twisting. 

Nicole touches her knee, the warm gentle pressure of her palm. “There’s no race,” she says, and Waverly can hear the crickets singing outside. “There’s no finish line. There’s just you, and how you feel.”

Waverly breathes, in through her nose and out through her mouth. “Thank you,” she says finally, “for letting me stay the night.”

Nicole’s hand slips off her knee; Waverly is surprised to feel colder without the contact. She shivers, and Nicole stands, unfolding the blanket while Waverly stretches out. The blanket flutters down onto her, and Waverly tucks it under her chin. It’s soft, worn in the best ways. The pillow smells like vanilla dip donuts. “Goodnight Waverly,” Nicole says, and disappears into the darkness of the hallway.

Waverly listens to her quiet footsteps, the squeak of the door and the creak of the mattress. She thinks about Champ, the way his boots leave dirt on the floor; she wonders if Nicole’s would do the same.

++

She wakes up with her shoes still on, her make up smudged. Two missed calls from Champ on her phone, a text from Wynonna she doesn’t open. She rubs at her eyes blearily, stumbling into the kitchen. There’s a note stuck to the coffee maker, made fresh and the milk left out for her on the counter. 

_come over anytime_

Waverly folds the note in half, and then one more time. Drinks the coffee standing, looking at the magnets on Nicole’s fridge. She tucks the note into her bra, over her heart, and locks the door behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post Willa's return, pre her exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not beta-ed, please forgive typos and careless errors.
> 
> so this one is set in the nebulous time when Willa is knocking around the Homestead.

Wyonna and Willa are making mac n’ cheese. 

“The way Daddy used to do it,” Wynonna says, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a fistful of Kraft singles in the other.

Willa is smiling, a real smile that transforms her face, brightens her eyes and makes her look a good five years younger. She’s standing at the stove, stirring the pasta, the steam curling up around the wooden spoon in her hand. There’s music playing on the old radio propped onto the counter, Momma’s old radio that Waverly fixed up herself. When Willa sings along Wynonna’s face goes soft with something complicated; longing and fear and tentative joy, so fragile and delicate it hurts to witness.

Waverly slips out the door; she doesn’t think they even notice she’s left.

++

She’s got earmuffs on, a winter jacket and fleece lined jeans, but there’s nothing like winters in Purgatory, the cold cutting through her layers within minutes.

Luckily, Nicole arrives home just as Waverly’s almost given up, almost lost her nerve on the wooden steps to Nicole’s house. She hears the crunch of tires on the snow and the road salt before she turns and sees the cruiser, rolling to a slow stop in the driveway, the sudden silence of the engine cutting off. 

Nicole emerges, her hair braided back and her hat low over her eyes. The sheriff’s department jacket is bulky, and her shoes clunk deep into the snow as she makes her way up to the stairs. Snow is falling thick and heavy, catching in the dip of her Stetson and the line of her shoulders. “Waverly Earp,” she greets, and when she takes her hat off Waverly can see the pink-tips of her ears. 

“Deputy Haught,” Waverly says, and when they kiss they’re smiling.

++

“Bold move,” Nicole says, while Waverly pours milk into a saucepan. Her holster clunks heavy on the kitchen table; water drips off her coat, hung on the back of the front door above their shoes, piled on the floor in a homey jumble. “Kissing on the front porch in front of everybody.”

Waverly pauses, then continues, listening for the gas click-click-flare of the burner lighting. “I can be brave,” she says, and Nicole’s hand curls around her hip, turning her.

“Waverly Earp,” Nicole says again, smiling soft and easy, snow melting off the tip of her braid, falling thick and heavy outside. “I’ve never met anybody braver.” She kisses Waverly’s hair, the dip of her temple, her nose brushing against Waverly’s cheek, the warm huff of her breath--black coffee and vanilla donuts.

Waverly thinks about Willa and Wynonna, cooking together with Momma’s radio in the house Daddy built. “I’m a coward,” she says quietly, watching the milk bubble up and simmer. “I always have been.”

Nicole turns the stove off, curling her fingers around Waverly’s wrist. Her nails, painted clear, glint under the lights, and when she tugs lightly Waverly lets herself be led.

“Do you remember,” Nicole asks, “when you and Champ had a fight, and you came over here?”

“Yes,” Waverly says, with a slight groan. “I made a terrible fool of myself.”

Nicole tweaks her nose, then turns, falling backwards onto the couch and taking Waverly with her.

Waverly squeaks, flailing for balance, and then falls, landing chest to chest with Nicole on her back. “That was… smooth.” Waverly pushes the hair out of her eyes, and when it falls back Nicole’s fingers take over, tucking it behind an ear. 

“I try.” Nicole’s still wearing her uniform shirt, and Waverly plays with one of the plastic buttons at her throat, watching Nicole’s eyes go dark with promise. Suddenly nervous, Waverly sits up, sliding off Nicole’s hips to perch at the edge of the couch, knees pulled up to her chest and her teeth worrying at her lip. Nicole nudges her with a socked foot. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Waverly says, too quickly to be true. 

“Waverly Earp,” Nicole hums, and that’s three times now, a full naming. Power comes in threes, Waverly thinks, the third sister just returned to them like she was up there in the mountains, just waiting for Wynonna to turn 27, nevermind the sister who stayed in Purgatory to visit her empty grave. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Nicole Haught, Waverly thinks, tried to help Wynonna from a hospital bed, touched her wrist when she was mourning Shorty, kisses her so softly it aches. There are very fine scars at her wrist and across her lefthand knuckles where a monster dragged her from the squad car she still drives every day, her blood stained in the footwell. Waverly’s never felt anything like she does for Nicole, an intensity she’s only ever felt for Wynonna with none of the baggage or the distance. It’s---it’s amazing, it’s incredible, it’s everything she thought it could be when she thought about love as a child and at the same time it’s nothing she ever could have predicted. 

Waverly thinks: _if I lose her now, before all our firsts, before forever, it will break me._

“I know,” she says, dropping her eyes. “It’s just hard, having Willa back.”

Something flickers across Nicole’s face, almost suspicion, almost hurt. Then she sighs, tucking an arm under her head and her other hand smoothing down Waverly’s spine, slipping under her shirt to lightly drag her nails across Waverly’s skin. “You can always come here,” she offers.

All the things chasing down her and Wynonna in this shitty little town where everyone Waverly has ever loved has died, and none of them from old age in their sleep. If she loved Nicole the right way, the childhood way, the storybook way… she would tell Nicole to leave and forget she ever knew the name Earp. 

“I know,” she says instead, laying her cheek on Nicole’s chest to hear her heartbeat, steady and even and strong. The sun is settling, slanting pale orange through the blinds in prison bar rectangles across the floor. At the window, Nicole’s cat lounges lazily, tail flicking. 

“I feel safe when I’m with you,” Waverly says quietly, and swallows the rest (you’re not safe with me) down into her belly with all the other half-truths and secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had an idea for pt 3, like one where they talk about the """""Wedding proposal"""" bc I have... thoughts. But idk I'm thinking it's a little boring and maybe I should end it here?
> 
> lemme know what you think and I'm on tumblr @sunspill

**Author's Note:**

> i know its a bit boring maybe but I hope if you got to the end you enjoyed it at least a little. ch2 is already written and will be posted either tomorrow or the next day (it's more of the same, except like... with kissing hehe)
> 
> tell me what you think and I'm on tumblr @ sunspill


End file.
